It says the term was used in 2011 when the House Republicans refused to raise the debt ceiling without address the surging deficit under President Obama.

The result was an agreement between the parties called the Budget Control Act that cut the increase in domestic spending by $1 trillion over 10 years.

“Democrats refused to agree to more cuts without additional revenue from taxes, and Republicans refused to agree to more tax increases,” the report said.

“Instead, Congress set up a committee to find further deficit reduction. To push the committee to reach a deal, negotiators established a fallback mechanism meant to be so onerous it would never happen: $1.2 trillion in across-the-board, automatic cuts to both military and domestic programs, set to begin this year.”

The report continued, “In past decades, budget laws have periodically allowed the executive branch to make small across-the-board spending cuts to the levels initially appropriated by Congress. These cuts are known as ‘sequestration’ because the government withdraws the money after Congress has released it.”